Dr. Greg Wood, a history professor at FSU, stood in front of a handful of students Wednesday ready to give the last Focus Frostburg seminar of the day. While most presentations focused on how mankind could help earth's; natural resources, Wood talked about a less common source of pollution, noise.
The name of Dr. Wood's presentation was Senses & The City: Industry, Urbanization and the Production of Noise. Dr. Wood focused on the affects that newfound urban noise had on the attitudes, emotions and actions of Chicagoans during the industrial revolution between 1900 and 1920. According to Dr. Wood, "the sensory experiences of inner city workers affected how they felt about their surroundings. This presentation focused on just a few ways noise affected Chicago's residents during this time.
According to Dr. Wood, "urbanites were often overwhelmed by their experiences with sound." He provided accounts of workers in Chicago's steel mills and packing plants. Both described a world filled with deafening, never ending noise. The squeals of the pigs being taken to slaughter and the continuous clank of metal clashing together were sounds that stayed with the workers even after they left work. Most workers just dealt with the sound until they no longer noticed the noise; according to Dr. Wood the only other option was, "if you can't handle it, just go crazy and quit."
Dr. Wood also identified trains as a major factor in noise production during this time. The trains themselves mixed with the whistles, bells, conductors, etc. Caused a plethora of noise that Chicago's 40% non-american population could not handle coming from quieter countries. Wood said trains caused a "disruption of routine sounds." At this time 30 million people rode the trains a year, there were over 86 miles of cable and over 1500 cable cars.
Dr. Wood found that Chicago's solution to end this noise was to simply move away. In 1913 the Chicago City Club proposed a suburb outside of the city where people with enough money could move away from the hustle and bustle of trains and factories. Along with this suburban outlook also came a spike in hot air balloon popularity. It seemed as if Chicagoans wanted to escape noise any way possible.
One interesting part of Dr. wood's presentation was the end where he displayed a picture of a Chicago fish salesman selling a purified fish that was nearly taller than him. It showed a different side of Chicago than portrayed in the presentation and Dr. Wood was amazed saying, "I cant believe they actually sold this on the streets, you could take this home!"
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